UNITED KINGDOM

Spy Cases

The Five

A substantial amount of new material bearing
on the activities of Soviet spies in Britain was carried by the Telegraph (London), beginning on 10 Jan. 1998, under the title "How Britain Was Betrayed: The KGB's Story." The material published by theTelegraph is "[b]ased on KGB files released
for The Crown Jewels by Nigel West and Oleg Tsarev and supplemented
by additional research of material in the KGB archives."

Petersen calls
this "a solid overview of the case," although Pforzheimer opines that the "use of the word 'Definitive' in the sub-title of this book is at best an exaggeration." Chambers categorizes
The Climate of Treason as "perhaps one of the best books on
the Cambridge Five. Well written. I enjoyed it immensely." Constantinides
recommends reading the revised version, which actually names Blunt as the
"Fourth Man."

Cram recommends
the book, "despite its numerous errors of fact and interpretation,
because it is a good read on the Cambridge spies." Publication of
the book forced the exposure of Anthony Blunt. It is "far superior
to John Costello's long-winded Mask of Treachery." However,
Boyle makes "a grotesque and inexplicable error" when he points
to an atomic scientist, codenamed "Basil." "Unsubstantiated
claims about Basil's identity tend to downgrade the credibility of Boyle's
work."

This is a review article encompassing
Costello and Tsarev, Deadly Illusions; Modin, My
Five Cambridge Friends; Borovik, The Philby Files; and
Sudoplatov(s) and Schecter(s), Special Tasks. However, the article's analytical content makes it worthwhile reading on its own. According to the author, the "main
problem is that we cannot check these books against the KGB's archives....
These sources tend to confirm each other although there are some minor
points of disagreement. This mutual dependance rather than independence
serves the goals of KGB disinformation and as such decreases the historical
value of these sources."

The author focuses on the third volume of Guy Liddell's diaries, declassified in 2012. The volume covers the period 1945 to 1953, ending with Liddell's departure from MI5. "It is an astonishing ... document, charting Liddell's reactions to the mounting evidence of his friends' treachery, from bland confidence, through apprehension, to open suspicion." Liddell "slowly came to the grim realisation that some of his closest friends, men he trusted utterly, had deceived and betrayed him. Liddell's friendship with the Cambridge spies wrecked his career, unfairly tarnishing the reputation of an exceptional intelligence officer."

The author is Goronwy Rees' daughter. Aldrich, I&NS 11.3, views Goronwy Rees as "an intriguing figure," given his literary and intellectual background, his service as an SIS officer, and his friendship with Guy Burgess and Anthony Blunt. His daughter's search for the answer to the question of whether her father was a Soviet spy took her to Oleg Tsarev who told her that "Rees had been recruited in a vague way by Burgess in 1937 and had briefly 'co-operated' with Soviet intelligence, but was not properly considered to be an agent."

"The intercepted KGB messages that detail
Moscow's dealings with the British spies Kim Philby, Donald Maclean and
Guy Burgess were released by GCHQ" to the Public Record Office on
1 October 1996. "The move was forced on the Cheltenham spy base by
the Americans, who released on to the Internet the results of Operation
Venona, the top-secret project to decipher Moscow Centre's communications
with its foreign stations....

"It was not until 1949 that the Venona team
managed to break into the messages from New York to Moscow containing the
information provided by Maclean, who was identified by the cover name Homer....
[T]he FBI concluded that any one of 6,000 people might have been Homer....
[S]lowly, MI5 narrowed down those names to a handful of people who would
have had access to the top-secret exchanges between London and Washington.

"Then in April 1951, the Venona cryptanalysts
found the vital clue in one of the messages. For part of 1944, Homer had
had regular contacts with his Soviet control in New York -- using his pregnant
wife as an excuse. The names had been narrowed down to just one -- Donald
Maclean. Tipped off by Philby, who had access to the Venona material, he
fled to Moscow with Burgess."

Sutherland,
Douglas. The Fourth Man: The Story of Blunt, Philby, Burgess and Maclean.
London: Secker & Warburg, 1980. The Great Betrayal: The Definitive
Story of Blunt, Philby, Burgess and Maclean. New York: Times Books,
1980.

Clark comment: Sutherland believed that the revelations with regard to Blunt settled the issue of the scope of the Cambridge ring. We know today that this was not the case. Constantinides
says the author "offers very little that is new, much speculation,
and a number of mistakes."

Teagarden, Ernest M.
"The Cambridge Five: The End of the Cold War Brings Forth Some Views
from the Other Side." American Intelligence Journal 18, no.
1/2 (1998): 63-68.

The author examines a number of the post-Cold War versions from both
Russian and Western writers of how the Cambridge Five came into being and
operated. He notes that agreement is lacking on such a basic issue as how
each member was recruited. It also seems clear that their reporting was
not always accepted on its face by the Soviet intelligence leadership.
There was, in fact, a "distrust of the Five that always seemed to
be just below the surface." The three defectors among the group "were
under constant surveillance" from the KGB.

West, Rebecca.

Much of what West does in her works on treason
stands up well, especially from a philosophical point of view, even after
so many years.

Constantinides finds this work "marked by the penetrating analysis and writing ability for which the author is famous." She provides "discerning judgments on the traitors and their motives." To Taylor and Snow, I&NS
12.2/116/fn.1, West's "epilogue in both volumes is a good introduction
to the concept of ideological treason."